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Summary: Learn about descending a plane with touch and go in this free how to fly video.
Views: 1,466 | Tags: plane, flying, airplane, pilot, flyingplane, slowplane, partsplane, planes
About the Expert
Dave Pressy Dave Pressy has been a flight instructor in the St. Louis Area for over four years, and a pilot for more than seven years. He has accumulated nearly 1200 hour... read more
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Questions & AnswersHi, I'm Dave Pressy with St. Charles Flying Service on behalf of Expert Village. It's almost 1600 and Jason, I've got you in sight, we'll be right over the top of you. We've got you too. Since we're coordinating our efforts with everybody, so he knows where I am, I know where he is. We maintain visual contact, he's going to be coming out right there. There he is. Nice bumpy day for you, Ron. Yeah. Ok. So what I'm going to do is just come out here about a mile or so and then what I'm going to do is start to descend down to our pattern altitude. I'm going to reduce my power, add my carb heat so we don't get any icing in the engine. And we'll start a nice 30-degree bank turn while we're descending. That should put us about 45 degrees to the downwind leg. So our downwind leg is going to be to the north, so we're going to come in about 45 degrees to that. St. Charles County Traffic, 6343 Delta is 45 to your drop entry for runway 18, touch and go, County. See, here's our airport coming up, we're still descending. About a 45-degree angle. All right, so then we're going to continue our turn, beyond and downwind. Now our runway is on our left, we're parallel to the runway. Ok, and there's the aircraft on final. Ok. So we're going to beam about the numbers there. We're going to reduce our power, so beam our touchdown point. Reduce our power to about 1,500 rpms, and add 10 degrees of flaps and start our descent. Maintaining a nice, straight track along the ground and at about 80 knots of airspeed. Once the runway gets to be about 45 degrees behind us, we're going to continue to slow the airplane, we're going to turn what's called our "base leg." We're going to turn 90 degrees to the west at about a 30-degree bank. We're going to turn a little bit more than 90 because we have the wind from our left and we don't want to be drifted out away from the runway. So we're going to turn a little bit more than 90, that's called a "crab." 20 degrees of flaps, and pitched for about 70 knots. Now reduce our power because we have a big updraft out here. Look both ways. Country Traffic 43-delta is turning a mile and a half final for runway 18, Country Traffic. Ok, so were going to trim for an airspeed. I have a lot of power reduce. I'm practically in idle setting because we have a lot of air moving up, a lot of updrafts around here. So I want to maintain my glide angle by adjusting my power, versus when it's slow flight, if I'm very slow I need a lot of power to maintain slow flight. All I'm doing is adjusting my power. If I reduce power, I will decrease my glide angle. Another updraft. Another thing I can do is I can slip a little bit. So I can actually turn the nose sideways and reduce my glide angle. And maintaining that centerline. While we get close to the runway, I know I have the runway made, so my power is at idle. What I'm going to do is lift that nose. Just keep bringing it up, keep bringing it up, keep bringing it up until we touch down, maintain the centerline, and roll it out. Go flaps up, carb heat, we'll go ahead and add some power, make out that centerline, lift that nose, tap the brakes and climb out. Nose just up on the horizon. County Traffic, 43-Delta is up one for 18, parting southwest, County Traffic. Let them know where we are, what we're going, maintaining our climb.
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